![\"\"](\"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/herman_melville.jpg\" "\\"herman_melville\\"")
<\/a>Herman Melville\u2019s novella \u201cBilly Budd\u201d has firmly secured its place in the law and literature canon, but a different law-related work by Melville is my favorite. \u00a0Over the last twenty-five years or so I have almost annually read \u201cBartleby the Scrivener \u2013 A Story of Wall Street\u201d (1853), being moved by it more each time.<\/p>\nThe narrator of the story is a humane, tolerant lawyer who was formerly a Master in Chancery and who now presides over a small Wall Street law office. \u00a0His employees include an office boy and three scriveners, the most eccentric of whom is Bartleby. \u00a0Demonstrating a certain \u201cpallid haughtiness,\u201d the latter at first refuses to complete small assignments and then over time declines to do anything at all. \u00a0His signature statement when asked to copy a legal document, to run an errand, or \u2013 ultimately \u2013 to seek work elsewhere is \u201cI would prefer not to.\u201d \u00a0In one of the lighter interludes of the story, all of the characters, the narrator included, cannot stop using the word \u201cprefer\u201d in their own comments.<\/p>\n
However, the story is neither farcical comedy nor romantic fantasy.\u00a0 With the lawyer\/narrator as our introspective vehicle, we as readers are invited to make sense of Bartleby as a symbolic representation of humankind. \u00a0Is Bartleby basically an alienated worker, doggedly copying documents to the detriment of his eyesight? \u00a0Is he mentally ill, staring for hours out his small window at a black wall only three feet away? Does he display a hostile passive aggressiveness, refusing to be remunerated, fed, or simply helped?<\/p>\n
The questions of course trump the answers. \u00a0After the lawyer\/narrator realizes Bartleby is sleeping in the Wall Street office, he grasps the true seriousness of the situation. \u00a0The lawyer finds going to church useless, and he instead wanders the streets of antebellum Manhattan desperately trying to understand both Bartleby and the human condition. \u00a0\u201cMy first emotions had been those of pure melancholy and sincerest pity,\u201d the lawyer says, \u201cbut just in proportion as the forlornness of Bartleby grew and grew in my imagination, did that same melancholy merge into fear, that pity into repulsion.\u201d \u00a0The lawyer realizes that alms cannot solve the problem. \u00a0It is Bartleby\u2019s soul that suffers, and his soul cannot be reached.<\/p>\n
In the end, the lawyer relocates his office on Broadway closer to City Hall, and the owner of the Wall Street building has the police remove Bartleby. \u00a0He is taken to the Tombs, where he refuses to eat or communicate. The lawyer visits several times but to no avail. \u00a0On his last visit he finds Bartleby curled up and dead with his face against a wall in the prison courtyard. \u00a0\u201cAh, Bartlelby. \u00a0Ah, humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 Herman Melville\u2019s novella \u201cBilly Budd\u201d has firmly secured its place in the law and literature canon, but a different law-related work by Melville is my favorite. \u00a0Over the last twenty-five years or so I have almost annually read \u201cBartleby the Scrivener \u2013 A Story of Wall Street\u201d (1853), being moved by it more each […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3315\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}